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1133

answers:

6

I'd like to use principal component analysis (PCA) for dimensionality reduction. Does numpy or scipy already have it, or do I have to roll my own using numpy.linalg.eigh?

I don't just want to use singular value decomposition (SVD) because my input data are quite high-dimensional (~460 dimensions), so I think SVD will be slower than computing the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix.

I was hoping to find a premade, debugged implementation that already makes the right decisions for when to use which method, and which maybe does other optimizations that I don't know about.

+6  A: 

You might have a look at MDP.

I have not had the chance to test it myself, but I've bookmarked it exactly for the PCA functionality.

ChristopheD
+1, great extension!
Yassin
+2  A: 

Here is another implementation of a PCA module for python using numpy, scipy and C-extensions. The module carries out PCA using either a SVD or the NIPALS (Nonlinear Iterative Partial Least Squares) algorithm which is implemented in C.

rcs
+5  A: 

matploblib.mlab has a PCA implementation.

tom10
+2  A: 

I just finish reading the book Machine Learning: An Algorithmic Perspective. All code examples in the book was written by Python(and almost with Numpy). The code snippet of chatper10.2 Principal Components Analysis maybe worth a reading. It use numpy.linalg.eig.
By the way, I think SVD can handle 460 * 460 dimensions very well. I have calculate a 6500*6500 SVD with numpy/scipy.linalg.svd on a very old PC:Pentium III 733mHz. To be honest, the script needs a lot of memory(about 1.xG) and a lot of time(about 30 minutes) to get the SVD result. But I think 460*460 on a modern PC will not be a big problem unless u need do SVD a huge number of times.

sunqiang
You should never use eig() on a covariance matrix when you can simply use svd(). Depending on how many components you plan on using and the size of your data matrix, the numerical error introduced by the former (it does more floating point operations) can become significant. For the same reason you should never explicitly invert a matrix with inv() if what you're really interested in is the inverse times a vector or matrix; you should use solve() instead.
dwf
@dwf, thanks for the info!
sunqiang
+4  A: 

SVD should work fine with 460 dimensions. It takes about 7 seconds on my Atom netbook. The eig() method takes more time (as it should, it uses more floating point operations) and will almost always be less accurate.

If you have less than 460 examples then what you want to do is diagonalize the scatter matrix (x - datamean)^T(x - mean), assuming your data points are columns, and then left-multiplying by (x - datamean). That might be faster in the case where you have more dimensions than data.

dwf
+2  A: 

Months later, here's a small class PCA, and a picture:

#!/usr/bin/env python
""" a small class for Principal Component Analysis
Usage:
    p = PCA( A, fraction=0.90 )
In:
    A: an array of e.g. 1000 observations x 20 variables, 1000 rows x 20 columns
    fraction: use principal components that account for e.g.
        90 % of the total variance

Out:
    p.U, p.d, p.Vt: from numpy.linalg.svd, A = U . d . Vt
    p.dinv: 1/d or 0, see NR
    p.eigen: the eigenvalues of A*A, in decreasing order (p.d**2).
        eigen[j] / eigen.sum() is variable j's fraction of the total variance;
        look at the first few eigen[] to see how many PCs get to 90 %, 95 % ...
    p.npc: number of principal components,
        e.g. 2 if the top 2 eigenvalues are >= `fraction` of the total.
        It's ok to change this; methods use the current value.

Methods:
    The methods of class PCA transform vectors or arrays of e.g.
    20 variables, 2 principal components and 1000 observations,
    using partial matrices U' d' Vt', parts of the full U d Vt:
    A ~ U' . d' . Vt' where e.g.
        U' is 1000 x 2
        d' is diag([ d0, d1 ]), the 2 largest singular values
        Vt' is 2 x 20.  Dropping the primes,

    d . Vt      2 principal vars = p.vars_pc( 20 vars )
    U           1000 obs = p.pc_obs( 2 principal vars )
    U . d . Vt  1000 obs, p.obs( 20 vars ) = pc_obs( vars_pc( vars ))
        fast approximate A . vars, using the `npc` principal components

    Ut              2 pcs = p.obs_pc( 1000 obs )
    V . dinv        20 vars = p.pc_vars( 2 principal vars )
    V . dinv . Ut   20 vars, p.vars( 1000 obs ) = pc_vars( obs_pc( obs )),
        fast approximate Ainverse . obs: vars that give ~ those obs.


Notes:
    PCA does not center or scale A; you usually want to first
        A -= A.mean(A, axis=0)
        A /= A.std(A, axis=0)
    with the little class Center or the like, below.

See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_component_analysis
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_value_decomposition
    Press et al., Numerical Recipes (2 or 3 ed), SVD
    PCA micro-tutorial
    iris-pca .py .png

"""

from __future__ import division
import numpy as np
dot = np.dot
    # import bz.numpyutil as nu
    # dot = nu.pdot

__version__ = "2010-04-14 apr"
__author_email__ = "denis-bz-py at t-online dot de"

#...............................................................................
class PCA:
    def __init__( self, A, fraction=0.90 ):
        assert 0 <= fraction <= 1
            # A = U . diag(d) . Vt, O( m n^2 ), lapack_lite --
        self.U, self.d, self.Vt = np.linalg.svd( A, full_matrices=False )
        assert np.all( self.d[:-1] >= self.d[1:] )  # sorted
        self.eigen = self.d**2
        self.sumvariance = np.cumsum(self.eigen)
        self.sumvariance /= self.sumvariance[-1]
        self.npc = np.searchsorted( self.sumvariance, fraction ) + 1
        self.dinv = np.array([ 1/d if d > self.d[0] * 1e-6  else 0
                                for d in self.d ])

    def pc( self ):
        """ e.g. 1000 x 2 U[:, :npc] * d[:npc], to plot etc. """
        n = self.npc
        return self.U[:, :n] * self.d[:n]

    # These 1-line methods may not be worth the bother;
    # then use U d Vt directly --

    def vars_pc( self, x ):
        n = self.npc
        return self.d[:n] * dot( self.Vt[:n], x.T ).T  # 20 vars -> 2 principal

    def pc_vars( self, p ):
        n = self.npc
        return dot( self.Vt[:n].T, (self.dinv[:n] * p).T ) .T  # 2 PC -> 20 vars

    def pc_obs( self, p ):
        n = self.npc
        return dot( self.U[:, :n], p.T )  # 2 principal -> 1000 obs

    def obs_pc( self, obs ):
        n = self.npc
        return dot( self.U[:, :n].T, obs ) .T  # 1000 obs -> 2 principal

    def obs( self, x ):
        return self.pc_obs( self.vars_pc(x) )  # 20 vars -> 2 principal -> 1000 obs

    def vars( self, obs ):
        return self.pc_vars( self.obs_pc(obs) )  # 1000 obs -> 2 principal -> 20 vars


class Center:
    """ A -= A.mean() /= A.std(), inplace -- use A.copy() if need be
        uncenter(x) == original A . x
    """
        # mttiw
    def __init__( self, A, axis=0, scale=True, verbose=1 ):
        self.mean = A.mean(axis=axis)
        if verbose:
            print "Center -= A.mean:", self.mean
        A -= self.mean
        if scale:
            std = A.std(axis=axis)
            self.std = np.where( std, std, 1. )
            if verbose:
                print "Center /= A.std:", self.std
            A /= self.std
        else:
            self.std = np.ones( A.shape[-1] )
        self.A = A

    def uncenter( self, x ):
        return np.dot( self.A, x * self.std ) + np.dot( x, self.mean )


#...............................................................................
if __name__ == "__main__":
    import sys

    csv = "iris4.csv"  # wikipedia Iris_flower_data_set
        # 5.1,3.5,1.4,0.2  # ,Iris-setosa ...
    N = 1000
    K = 20
    fraction = .90
    seed = 1
    exec "\n".join( sys.argv[1:] )  # N= ...
    np.random.seed(seed)
    np.set_printoptions( 1, threshold=100, suppress=True )  # .1f
    try:
        A = np.genfromtxt( csv, delimiter="," )
        N, K = A.shape
    except IOError:
        A = np.random.normal( size=(N, K) )  # gen correlated ?

    print "csv: %s  N: %d  K: %d  fraction: %.2g" % (csv, N, K, fraction)
    Center(A)
    print "A:", A

    print "PCA ..." ,
    p = PCA( A, fraction=fraction )
    print "npc:", p.npc
    print "% variance:", p.sumvariance * 100

    print "Vt[0], weights that give PC 0:", p.Vt[0]
    print "A . Vt[0]:", dot( A, p.Vt[0] )
    print "pc:", p.pc()

    print "\nobs <-> pc <-> x: with fraction=1, diffs should be ~ 0"
    x = np.ones(K)
    # x = np.ones(( 3, K ))
    print "x:", x
    pc = p.vars_pc(x)  # d' Vt' x
    print "vars_pc(x):", pc
    print "back to ~ x:", p.pc_vars(pc)

    Ax = dot( A, x.T )
    pcx = p.obs(x)  # U' d' Vt' x
    print "Ax:", Ax
    print "A'x:", pcx
    print "max |Ax - A'x|: %.2g" % np.linalg.norm( Ax - pcx, np.inf )

    b = Ax  # ~ back to original x, Ainv A x
    back = p.vars(b)
    print "~ back again:", back
    print "max |back - x|: %.2g" % np.linalg.norm( back - x, np.inf )

# end pca.py

alt text

Denis